Police stop another demonstration in Cambodia while NGO workers in Laos remember a high-profile disappearance.
By Radio Free Asia2024.12.10
Undated photo of Tibetan political prisoners. (RFA)
Across Asia on Tuesday, activists and others marked International Human Rights Day by remembering those in the region who have recently been imprisoned, killed, disappeared or forced to flee their homeland.
“On Human Rights Day, we face a harsh truth. Human rights are under assault,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement.
“International law is willfully ignored,” he said. “Authoritarianism is on the march while civic space is shrinking.”
But he added that “all human rights” -– including equality for women, standing up for democracy, press freedoms and workers’ rights and promoting a healthy and sustainable environment –- should still be considered “indivisible.”
Cambodia
In Phnom Penh, some 50 police and other security personnel stopped 20 youth activists from marching from Phnom Penh’s night market to the Royal Palace to light candles and incense.
The activists were attempting to protest the country’s growing numbers of prisoners of conscience, including the 10 environmental activists who in June were given sentences of between six and eight years on charges criticized by international observers as politically motivated.
Activists mark International Human Rights Day around the globe In Toronto, the protestors included Tibetans, Uyghurs and Chinese from Hong Kong and Taiwan, among others.
Police in Cambodia have cracked down on political demonstrations in recent years. In some cases, permits to march through the streets are denied by municipal officials.
In August, the government positioned police throughout the country to head off planned protests against an economic cooperation agreement with Vietnam and Laos.
On Tuesday, no violence was reported after police blocked the poster-carrying youth activists. Instead, the activists agreed to gather in front of the night market.
“As a sister of a jailed youth activist who is the victim of injustice, today I was treated unfairly by authorities,” said Long Soklin, younger sister of Long Kunthea, one of the environmental activists sentenced in June.
“I’m so disappointed and saddened that injustice in Cambodia is on the rise,” she said.
Laos
This coming Sunday marks the 12th anniversary of when activist Sombath Somphone was stopped at a police checkpoint near Vientiane, forced into a truck and driven away. He’s not been seen since.
Before his abduction, Sombath had become well-known for challenging massive land deals that had left thousands of rural Lao villagers homeless with little compensation. The deals -– negotiated by the government –- had sparked rare protests in Laos, where political speech is tightly controlled.
Across Asia on Tuesday, activists and others marked International Human Rights Day by remembering those in the region who have recently been imprisoned, killed, disappeared or forced to flee their homeland.
“On Human Rights Day, we face a harsh truth. Human rights are under assault,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement.
“International law is willfully ignored,” he said. “Authoritarianism is on the march while civic space is shrinking.”
But he added that “all human rights” -– including equality for women, standing up for democracy, press freedoms and workers’ rights and promoting a healthy and sustainable environment –- should still be considered “indivisible.”
Cambodia
In Phnom Penh, some 50 police and other security personnel stopped 20 youth activists from marching from Phnom Penh’s night market to the Royal Palace to light candles and incense.
The activists were attempting to protest the country’s growing numbers of prisoners of conscience, including the 10 environmental activists who in June were given sentences of between six and eight years on charges criticized by international observers as politically motivated.
Activists mark International Human Rights Day around the globe In Toronto, the protestors included Tibetans, Uyghurs and Chinese from Hong Kong and Taiwan, among others.
Police in Cambodia have cracked down on political demonstrations in recent years. In some cases, permits to march through the streets are denied by municipal officials.
In August, the government positioned police throughout the country to head off planned protests against an economic cooperation agreement with Vietnam and Laos.
On Tuesday, no violence was reported after police blocked the poster-carrying youth activists. Instead, the activists agreed to gather in front of the night market.
“As a sister of a jailed youth activist who is the victim of injustice, today I was treated unfairly by authorities,” said Long Soklin, younger sister of Long Kunthea, one of the environmental activists sentenced in June.
“I’m so disappointed and saddened that injustice in Cambodia is on the rise,” she said.
Laos
This coming Sunday marks the 12th anniversary of when activist Sombath Somphone was stopped at a police checkpoint near Vientiane, forced into a truck and driven away. He’s not been seen since.
Before his abduction, Sombath had become well-known for challenging massive land deals that had left thousands of rural Lao villagers homeless with little compensation. The deals -– negotiated by the government –- had sparked rare protests in Laos, where political speech is tightly controlled.
Shui-Meng Ng holds a picture of her missing Laos husband Sombath Somphone, an environmental campaigner, in Bangkok, Dec. 12, 2018. (Romeo Gacad/AFP)
Police have promised to investigate Sombath’s Dec. 15, 2012, disappearance, which was captured on closed circuit video. But there has never been any credible technical examination of the footage.
Volker Turk, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, made an in-person request to Lao government officials to investigate this case during a two-day visit to Laos in June. The government has made no statements on the case.
“The Lao government has no intent to investigate this case seriously,” said Phil Robertson, the director of Asian Human Rights and Labor Advocates.
Not only have police denied involvement, they have also tried to shift the blame to Sombath, implying that there was something personal or business-related behind the disappearance, Robertson said.
“But everyone knows Sombath was last seen with Lao police at a checkpoint in Vientiane prefecture,” he said.
Although memory of the case is slowly fading in Laos, social workers and NGO officials worry they could be the next target, according to an NGO worker who requested anonymity for security reasons.
“No one wants to mention it because they think it won’t help or change anything for the better,” the worker said. “NGOs know for sure that this issue cannot be solved. They do not talk about it now.”
Vietnam
Four out of the five lawyers who defended a Buddhist organization in Vietnam in 2022 –- and who were later summoned for police questioning after publicly discussing the case –- have now fled the country.
Attorney Trinh Vinh Phuc is the latest defense lawyer for the Peng Lei Buddhist House Church to leave Vietnam. He and his wife arrived in North Carolina on Dec. 4.
Attorney Trinh Vinh Phuc in North Carolina on Dec. 9, 2024.
Six members of the Buddhist church were sentenced in July 2022 to a combined 23 years and six months in prison on charges of “abusing democratic freedoms.”
Vietnam maintains strict laws on religious activity that require groups to be supervised by government-controlled management boards. The Peng Lei Buddhist House Church is an independent Buddhist community.
Phuc and four colleagues -– attorneys Dang Dinh Manh, Nguyen Van Mieng, Dao Kim Lan and Ngo Thi Hoang Anh –- defended the church.
In February 2023, the attorneys sent a petition to Vietnam’s leaders, accusing prosecuting agencies in Duc Hoa district and Long An province of serious wrongdoings. Authorities in turn alleged that the lawyers themselves had shown “signs of abusing democratic freedoms.”
By April 2023, all five lawyers had received police summons, following allegations from the Ministry of Public Security that said they had disseminated information online about the case.
The public discussion of the case could be a violation of Vietnam’s Article 331 – a statute in the penal code widely criticized by international communities as being vague, and routinely used to attack those defending of human rights.
In June 2023, Manh, Mieng and Lan fled to the U.S. to seek asylum after the police sent out notices to search for them.
Phuc told RFA on Monday that leaving his home country and ending his 30 years of legal practice was a tough decision.
“The intense pressure from Long An Provincial Police over the past two years and my desire to protect my honor and dignity” left him with no choice, he said.
Attorneys in Vietnam who are involved in sensitive cases –- particularly those related to police power -– face difficulties and dangers, as well as the risk of being prosecuted, arrested and imprisoned, he said.
Myanmar
Democracy activists in Myanmar on Monday and Tuesday called for international attention to ensure redress for people who are facing human rights violations under the military junta.
“In Myanmar, we are currently witnessing incidents of this terrorist military regime burning down our entire villages, atrocities against innocent people, human rights violations and airstrikes,” said Aung Myo Kyaw, an official with the Assistance Association for Political Victims. “These are all happening across the country.”
U.N. human rights experts said in a statement on Dec. 2 that 6,000 civilians have died from torture and executions and in prison in Myanmar since the military took power in a 2021 coup d’etat.
Aung Myo Min, the Minister for Human Rights of the shadow National Unity Government -- made up of former civilian leaders -- called for a united effort to develop human rights in the future of Myanmar in a statement on Tuesday.
“We respectfully appeal to continue to fight to eliminate fear, to fight injustice, and at the same time, to build a new state, a new country, and a new environment where human rights are promoted in the future in Myanmar.”
Tibet
China is systematically wiping out the names and details of Tibetan political prisoners from its official database, making it difficult for governments and human rights organizations to track prisoners and advocate for their release, human rights analysts told RFA.
“Just this year, more than 40 Tibetan dissidents have either been imprisoned or their whereabouts are not known,” said Phurbu Dolma, researcher at Dharamsala, India-based Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy .
Among those erased from the official records are four monks from Tengdro Monastery in Tinri County of the Tibetan Autonomous Region who were secretly imprisoned in July 2021: Choegyal Wangpo (who was given 20 years’ prison sentence), Lobsang Jinpa (19 years’ sentence), Norbu Dhondup (7 years’ sentence), and Ngawang Yeshi (5 years’ sentence).
Additionally, there have been a series of recent crackdowns on the use of Tibetan language, including the forced closure of Ragya Sherig Norling Educational Institution and other learning centers, as well as a ban on the use of Tibetan language on social media.
The Chinese government has shuttered monastery schools that teach Tibetan and has also forced monks and nuns aged 18 and below to be sent to state-run boarding schools where the medium of instruction is Mandarin.
“This year’s theme for International Human Rights Day is ‘Our Rights, Our Future, Right Now,’ which is highly relevant to the rights situation inside Tibet amid China’s deliberate attempts at erasing Tibetan language and identity,” says Dukten Kyi, who heads the Central Tibetan Administration’s human rights desk.
RFA Khmer, RFA Vietnamese, RFA Lao, RFA Burmese and RFA Tibetan contributed to this report. Translated by Anna Vu, Sovannarith Keo and Aung Naing. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.
Police have promised to investigate Sombath’s Dec. 15, 2012, disappearance, which was captured on closed circuit video. But there has never been any credible technical examination of the footage.
Volker Turk, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, made an in-person request to Lao government officials to investigate this case during a two-day visit to Laos in June. The government has made no statements on the case.
“The Lao government has no intent to investigate this case seriously,” said Phil Robertson, the director of Asian Human Rights and Labor Advocates.
Not only have police denied involvement, they have also tried to shift the blame to Sombath, implying that there was something personal or business-related behind the disappearance, Robertson said.
“But everyone knows Sombath was last seen with Lao police at a checkpoint in Vientiane prefecture,” he said.
Although memory of the case is slowly fading in Laos, social workers and NGO officials worry they could be the next target, according to an NGO worker who requested anonymity for security reasons.
“No one wants to mention it because they think it won’t help or change anything for the better,” the worker said. “NGOs know for sure that this issue cannot be solved. They do not talk about it now.”
Vietnam
Four out of the five lawyers who defended a Buddhist organization in Vietnam in 2022 –- and who were later summoned for police questioning after publicly discussing the case –- have now fled the country.
Attorney Trinh Vinh Phuc is the latest defense lawyer for the Peng Lei Buddhist House Church to leave Vietnam. He and his wife arrived in North Carolina on Dec. 4.
Attorney Trinh Vinh Phuc in North Carolina on Dec. 9, 2024.Six members of the Buddhist church were sentenced in July 2022 to a combined 23 years and six months in prison on charges of “abusing democratic freedoms.”
Vietnam maintains strict laws on religious activity that require groups to be supervised by government-controlled management boards. The Peng Lei Buddhist House Church is an independent Buddhist community.
Phuc and four colleagues -– attorneys Dang Dinh Manh, Nguyen Van Mieng, Dao Kim Lan and Ngo Thi Hoang Anh –- defended the church.
In February 2023, the attorneys sent a petition to Vietnam’s leaders, accusing prosecuting agencies in Duc Hoa district and Long An province of serious wrongdoings. Authorities in turn alleged that the lawyers themselves had shown “signs of abusing democratic freedoms.”
By April 2023, all five lawyers had received police summons, following allegations from the Ministry of Public Security that said they had disseminated information online about the case.
The public discussion of the case could be a violation of Vietnam’s Article 331 – a statute in the penal code widely criticized by international communities as being vague, and routinely used to attack those defending of human rights.
In June 2023, Manh, Mieng and Lan fled to the U.S. to seek asylum after the police sent out notices to search for them.
Phuc told RFA on Monday that leaving his home country and ending his 30 years of legal practice was a tough decision.
“The intense pressure from Long An Provincial Police over the past two years and my desire to protect my honor and dignity” left him with no choice, he said.
Attorneys in Vietnam who are involved in sensitive cases –- particularly those related to police power -– face difficulties and dangers, as well as the risk of being prosecuted, arrested and imprisoned, he said.
Myanmar
Democracy activists in Myanmar on Monday and Tuesday called for international attention to ensure redress for people who are facing human rights violations under the military junta.
“In Myanmar, we are currently witnessing incidents of this terrorist military regime burning down our entire villages, atrocities against innocent people, human rights violations and airstrikes,” said Aung Myo Kyaw, an official with the Assistance Association for Political Victims. “These are all happening across the country.”
U.N. human rights experts said in a statement on Dec. 2 that 6,000 civilians have died from torture and executions and in prison in Myanmar since the military took power in a 2021 coup d’etat.
Aung Myo Min, the Minister for Human Rights of the shadow National Unity Government -- made up of former civilian leaders -- called for a united effort to develop human rights in the future of Myanmar in a statement on Tuesday.
“We respectfully appeal to continue to fight to eliminate fear, to fight injustice, and at the same time, to build a new state, a new country, and a new environment where human rights are promoted in the future in Myanmar.”
Tibet
China is systematically wiping out the names and details of Tibetan political prisoners from its official database, making it difficult for governments and human rights organizations to track prisoners and advocate for their release, human rights analysts told RFA.
“Just this year, more than 40 Tibetan dissidents have either been imprisoned or their whereabouts are not known,” said Phurbu Dolma, researcher at Dharamsala, India-based Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy .
Among those erased from the official records are four monks from Tengdro Monastery in Tinri County of the Tibetan Autonomous Region who were secretly imprisoned in July 2021: Choegyal Wangpo (who was given 20 years’ prison sentence), Lobsang Jinpa (19 years’ sentence), Norbu Dhondup (7 years’ sentence), and Ngawang Yeshi (5 years’ sentence).
Additionally, there have been a series of recent crackdowns on the use of Tibetan language, including the forced closure of Ragya Sherig Norling Educational Institution and other learning centers, as well as a ban on the use of Tibetan language on social media.
The Chinese government has shuttered monastery schools that teach Tibetan and has also forced monks and nuns aged 18 and below to be sent to state-run boarding schools where the medium of instruction is Mandarin.
“This year’s theme for International Human Rights Day is ‘Our Rights, Our Future, Right Now,’ which is highly relevant to the rights situation inside Tibet amid China’s deliberate attempts at erasing Tibetan language and identity,” says Dukten Kyi, who heads the Central Tibetan Administration’s human rights desk.
RFA Khmer, RFA Vietnamese, RFA Lao, RFA Burmese and RFA Tibetan contributed to this report. Translated by Anna Vu, Sovannarith Keo and Aung Naing. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.
No comments:
Post a Comment